Seattle Bans RealPage for Residential Landlords

RealPage’s days in Seattle appear to be numbered.

On Tuesday, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to ban all software that gathers information from properties and uses the data collected to recommend rent prices to landlords, The Seattle Times reported. This includes websites like RealPage, which has fielded a flurry of lawsuits in recent years.

Council member Cathy Moore, who co-sponsored the bill, said that “rent really is too darn high” and believed the move to ban RealPage and similar sites is “one small way that we can contribute to making this a more diverse and equitable city.” Moore, who is resigning next month due to health and personal reasons, has come under fire from some progressives for proposing rollbacks to some city tenant protections.

Under the new law, any service that compiles current and past rents, occupancy rates and other data from private or public sources and then uses an algorithm to recommend rent prices to more than one landlord would be prohibited. It would also stop Seattle landlords from subscribing to or contracting with those services, and would permit either the city attorney’s office or tenants to seek $7,500 per violation.

Basic record-keeping programs, software related to short-term rentals and hotels, and programs that are based only on public information and are available without a contract are exempt.

RealPage has faced lawsuits from tenants, state attorneys general and the U.S. Department of Justice alleging its software allows antitrust violations. The Washington state attorney general is among those who have taken legal action, and in a lawsuit this year, the attorney general’s office said that RealPage and the landlords who use it “manipulate, distort and subvert competitive forces.”

In April, RealPage sued the city of Berkeley, California, over a similar ordinance. It claims its software doesn’t hurt competition as landlords often don’t accept its price recommendations. Company vice president Mike Semko blasted the Seattle City Council’s legislation as “essentially a total ban on algorithmic pricing.”

“There is not an industry in the United States that does not use software to help sellers price widgets. The apartment industry is no different,” Semko told council members, per The Seattle Times. “This would put apartment owners way behind the eight ball.”

The bill is headed to Mayor Bruce Harrell’s desk for signature; a spokesperson told the Times he plans on giving it his John Hancock. The law will take effect a month after Harrell’s signature.

— Chris Malone Méndez